Showing papers by "Vegard Iversen published in 2017"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors exploit randomly assigned political quotas for women to identify the impact of women's political leadership on corruption and on the governance of India's largest poverty-alleviation program.
Abstract: We exploit randomly assigned political quotas for women to identify the impact of women’s political leadership on corruption and on the governance of India’s largest poverty-alleviation program to date. Using survey data, we find more program inefficiencies and leakages in village councils reserved for women heads: political and administrative inexperience make such councils more vulnerable to bureaucratic capture. This is at odds with claims of unconditional gains from women assuming political office. A panel of official audit reports enables us to explore (a) whether newly elected women leaders in reserved seats initially perform worse; (b) whether they partly catch up, fully catch up, or eventually outperform (male) leaders in unreserved seats; and (c) the time it takes for such catch-up to occur. We find that women leaders in reserved seats initially underperform but rapidly learn and quickly and fully catch up with male politicians in unreserved seats. Over the duration of their elected tenur...
88 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined intergenerational occupational mobility in India among males using the Indian Human Development Survey survey of 2011-12, and found that vast differences exist in the upward mobility prospects of urban versus rural residents and upper-caste Hindus versus Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Abstract: We examine intergenerational occupational mobility in India among males using the Indian Human Development Survey survey of 2011-12. Our analysis differs from previous work in two important respects. First, we use a finer-grained categorisation that takes into account differences in skill levels across different occupations as well as their place in India’s social hierarchy of labour. Second, we examine both sharp and moderate occupational ascents and descents – that is, both large and not-so-large movements up or down the social status ladder. We compare India with historical occupational mobility elsewhere and examine how such ascents and descents are linked to social identity and urban location. We find that vast differences exist in the upward mobility prospects of urban versus rural residents and upper-caste Hindus versus Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Simultaneously, the prospects for downward mobility are large in India, larger among rural residents and among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. We also find striking parallels between upward mobility prospects and sharp descent risks in India and China
43 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that it helps to be prepared, planning impact evaluations before the onset of emergencies, and factorial designs and quasi-experimental designs can be ethical and robust, answering questions about how to improve the delivery of assistance.
Abstract: Each year billions of US-dollars of humanitarian assistance are mobilised in response to man-made emergencies and natural disasters. Yet, rigorous evidence for how best to intervene remains scant. This dearth reflects that rigorous impact evaluations of humanitarian assistance pose major methodological, practical and ethical challenges. While theory-based impact evaluations can crucially inform humanitarian programming, popular methods, such as orthodox RCTs, are less suitable. Instead, factorial designs and quasi-experimental designs can be ethical and robust, answering questions about how to improve the delivery of assistance. We argue that it helps to be prepared, planning impact evaluations before the onset of emergencies.
37 citations